The Shadow Age (The Age of Dawn Book 7)

by Everet Martins

  Finding the Purist camp took longer than Greyson anticipated. The day was thick with rolling gray clouds, threatening to unleash a torrent upon the grasslands. He left on horseback with five members of the Black Guard, the most elite warriors of the Midgaard Falcon, tasked with defending the king and his family. It was rumored that a single Black Guard could fell ten soldiers before falling. Their armor, a burnished dark iron, and granite scowls paid testament to their namesake. They were heavily armed, always searching for a reason to fight. He didn’t know their names nor cared to learn them. The part of him that had always struggled for life was fading.

  Greyson wore light leather armor filigreed to make his status known to the Purists. He doubted the armor would offer any protection, but supposedly, his father’s name did. He carried an ornate sword on his hip, but it too was about as useless as his armor. He had the courage and the anger to swing it, but not the skill nor endurance to survive an encounter with a true swordsman.

  The kingdom hadn’t yet repaired the roads since the end of the Shadow War. Some parts around the road were marked with muddy pits of quicksand, swallowing trees and the occasional wolf. The Shadow’s touch left no stone unblemished, their sides slicked with black tar where it once infected the lands. Sections of the northern road beyond the Wall had been washed out, replaced by fissures of stone, causing them to take detours through the dense thicket. His sable gelding didn’t seem to mind, thrashing through thorns unbidden. Sand Buckeyes, a carnivorous plant known for catching legs and hooves in its sawtooth jaws, thankfully didn’t grow this far north.

  The road was nothing like it showed on the map, a series of curling lanes, repeatedly traversing what felt like the same area of ground. The path seemed to have been carved by men who enjoyed far too much drink. Sometimes Greyson could see the Mountains of Misery above the trees, their white peaks stabbing at the infinite sky.

  “Game paths,” a reedy Black Guard had commented, explaining away grunts and growls of discontent. Conversation was minimal. No one seemed to enjoy the prospect of this trip, Greyson least of all. When they left, a seed of doubt vibrated in his stomach, something easily ignored. That vibration seemed to magnify as they plodded onward. There were a few times where he thought he might have to halt their march so he could empty his stomach and likely his bowels behind a bush, but before those orders came, the discomfort relented.

  The cool wind was a constant companion, the Phoenix’s tails tracing across the tall grasses and wicking away sweat. Somewhere, the Arch Wizard sat perched upon her spire, staring out over the world as if she owned it. He gritted his teeth, squinting through the trees, and trying to glimpse the Tower. It was too far. He wondered what she was thinking, what corrupted schemes she brewed.

  There was a period where Greyson was free of both pain and fear. For the first time, he noticed the guards, taking in their heavy plate armor under fluttering tabards, embossed with an emblem of a gray shield. They all rode easy, not a care in the world, likely bored with the prospect of escorting yet another royal child. How little they knew. Someday, he would make his mark, and the world would remember him.

  His eyes bulged at the sight of one of the guards, a hulk of a man whose torso rivaled the width of a bull’s. His arms were short and thick with overlapping jagged plates, shoulders sheathed in great chunks of plate that rose up to protect his head from wayward blows. Shrouding his mouth was a high collared strip of neck armor, his square head poking above it and covered with a stitched leather cap.

  Twin pairs of chains crossed his shoulders, securing fat tomes against either hip. The book covers were heavily armored as if they needed more protection than the guard himself. Across his horse’s saddle was a two-handed war hammer, the flat sides of the head inlaid with spikes. Under his hammer was a shield so large Greyson doubted he’d have the strength to drag it with two hands. He tilted his head, further inspecting the guardsman, his head swiveling to regard him with slitted eyes. “Bezog,” the guardsman said, voice deep and crisp.

  “What? I-I’m sorry.” Greyson stammered, eyes averting and blood warming in his cheeks. He rolled his eyes at the sky, giving an inward shake of his head at his unyielding self-doubt.

  “That’s my name, what you were wondering,” Bezog said flatly, staring ahead. Hooves clopped into an area where the trees went leafless and dead. “Your father made me the new Scarlet Black Guard while you were…” he seemed to search for the right word, “missing.”

  “How do you know what…” Greyson’s lips thinned into a smile. He eyed the red bands of cloth tied around Bezog’s biceps, indicating his rank, the ragged ends drifting on a breeze. “The new captain. I wish I could’ve been there to watch Lajoy slit his throat in the throne room. Never liked that man. He was an uncouth brute, too quick to anger.”

  The ghost of a smile touched Bezog’s mouth. “It was perhaps a bit rash for a mistake anyone could make,” he said, shrugging some tightness from his shoulders and making his armor hiss.

  Greyson looked Bezog up and down, knowing the guardsman felt his gaze but chose not to meet it. “Where are you from, Bezog?”

  “Midgaard,” he answered with a series of slow nods. “On the outskirts, with the downtrodden, as you might call them.” He offered nothing more.

  “Did you get your scars from the Shadow War?” Greyson asked, breaking a moment’s silence.

  “Most are from the Shadow War. Some from lucky countryside bandits. Does the kingdom suddenly care about the wellbeing of its men?”

  Greyson ignored the slight. “Tell me, Bezog, what are you reading and why do your books demand such protection?”

  “No,” Bezog said, eyes fixed ahead.

  Another guard let out a gruff laugh. “Old Bezog’s tight as a young virgin.” That got a few laughs from the other guards. “Wasting your breath bleeding that stone, my prince.”

  Greyson’s jaw locked down through a surge of pain in his back. “Did I ask you?” He twisted on his saddle to glare at the guard, his hair swinging over one eye.

  “I apologize, my lord,” the guardsman muttered.

  Greyson swallowed the rage threatening to burst from his lips, setting a scowl on the Scarlet Black Guard. “Bezog. What are you reading?” he shrilled, tendrils of crimson pulsing up his neck.

  A long murderous smile spread up Bezog’s lips, cresting up high to wrinkle his eyes. He turned his head to the left to regard Greyson, filling him with a great sense of dread. He leaned over his saddle, his glare enough to shatter Greyson’s confidence. “You are but a boy, a child with a man’s station. You will make no demands of me,” he said, the matter settled.

  “Boy? Boy!” Greyson shrieked, fingernails digging into his saddle’s pommel. “Do you know who I am? What your job is?” Crows clattered from a rotting tree, squawking into the gray.

  Bezog’s eyes narrowed down to a razor’s edge of white, hand slowly moving down toward his war hammer, his fingers resting upon its haft. The call of the crows echoed in his ears. Leather creaked. A guard cleared his throat. Bezog leaned farther over his saddle toward Greyson, breath hot on his face. “I have sworn to defend you, not bend over for your royal prick. Do you understand, Greyson?”

  Greyson’s eyes felt as they’d melt from his skull, throat going dry as dirt. He could see it in Bezog’s eyes. Killing him would be nothing to him. He could picture it, see Bezog’s hammer coming up and crashing down to split his head into a mess of brains and bones. He’d shrug and smile, turn back for the kingdom, glad for the journey’s abrupt end. I’m sorry, my king, the lad fell from his saddle and struck a stone. The Black Guards would loyally abide by his story, washing Greyson’s name from the histories.

  He wanted to live. He knew death loomed, but his time was not ripe. He would die, but not before he got a knife in the Arch Wizard’s back. Greyson returned Bezog’s smile as a tingle of pain buzzed up his throat. He opened his eyes wide, knowing they’d be laced in a violet tinge. “I understand, Captain. I apologize for prying.”
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  Bezog slowly leaned back in his saddle, hand leaving his war hammer’s haft to rest on his reins. He gave a wordless nod at no one. A twitch flicked at a lower eyelid. Was that fear? Greyson could only hope.

  They wound their way into a maze of swamp, snaking around whitewashed trees that muted the wind. Frogs sang, and sulfurous gasses bit his sinuses. In some spots, the horses trudged through muck up to their haunches, throwing clods of mud over everyone.

  The humidity was choking, boots soaked, his thighs red with chaffing. Punctuating long bouts of silence were flies that buzzed between broken stumps. Rotting sticks snapped under hooves. Trapped air once disturbed broke the surface of decay, stinking worse than the commoner’s latrine.

  Greyson stopped to peel a glassy black leech from his horse, its body already starting to bloat with an influx of blood. He growled in disgust, pulling at it with trembling fingers. It finally tugged free with a sigh, the gelding giving what he imagined to be a pleased knicker.

  Around mid-afternoon, Greyson spotted the signs of men. There was clothing half drowned in mud, rusted weapons, and mouldering wine barrels. By late afternoon, they made it out of the swamp and into a forest of mostly pines, the trees lined in frost. The path was covered in a thick canopy of trodden needles, confirming the presence of men. He asked if this was still the right way, and Bezog assured that it was according to the map.

  In the forest, the shadows slithered like ghosts. It was the sort of place where one might be apt to panic at a lurching shadow, running in a mad dash and only to be snared by a root, lost forever with a shattered ankle. A place where man and nature collided, easily becoming prey for wolves if you didn’t have the numbers.

  The sun briefly pierced the clouds, and then the rain came. It fell in fat droplets, then became cutting sleet, pattering among the canopy of decay. There were moments where it fell so hard it sounded like the march of boots. They found shelter under an ancient oak, its bark twisted into strange configurations that looked like demons in Greyson’s eyes, though it could’ve been made to look like anything if you tortured your vision enough.

  The sun again poked through the gloom, painting the forest in a bleeding red and deepening shadows. Brush swayed against the onslaught, given life under creaking branches. Somewhere, a wolf howled. Mist rose from the ground and blanketed the distance, obscuring everything farther than twenty feet. The fog became a scarlet so bright he might have sworn it was magic had he not seen the sun. It streamed between the trees, trailing into wisps from the rushing wind.

  Greyson had dismounted and huddled against the tree. From his saddlebags, he produced a heavy leather coat that would ward the majority of the sleet. While putting it on, the shadows shifted into figures. Shadowed men in armor, weapons at waists and in hands, mail whispering.

  The Black Guards started to dismount, but Bezog raised a hand to stop them while he dismounted. They complied, narrowed their eyes at the approaching men. “Protect the prince,” Bezog commanded, raising his index finger to the sky and giving it a twirl. The other guards shifted into motion, circling Greyson, putting his back to the tree, and forcing him to watch the unfolding scene between horseflesh and armored legs. He felt no fear, only eager curiosity.

  “And just when I thought this trip would be a bore,” Greyson muttered. “I thought they wouldn’t attack if they knew who I was?”

  “Likely can’t see you in this shit weather,” a guard scoffed. “Purists. Glad to see them out of the city. Your father made a wise decision.”

  The men drew closer, three of them in all, wearing a motley assortment of scavenged clothing and ill-fitting armor. They circled all sides of Bezog, his war hammer held at his side, its menacing head resting on the earth. An older man appeared to be the leader, stepping out from the center of the circle to face Bezog. Greyson guessed he wasn’t much older than himself, but there was a mad hunger in his eyes, hard lines in his face telling the story of a trying life. He wore a beard with a thick braid resting on the middle of his chest. A cloak riddled with holes and shredded into strips at the bottom hung from his shoulders.

  “Have you come to die?” Bezog asked.

  “We have come to hurt you,” the leader answered. “For hiding, for not announcing your presence to the great lord, Terar. And then of course, once we’ve had our fun, we’ll kill you, eventually. You’ve discovered this place…and this is not a place for adventurers.”

  Greyson thought to mention that the king sent them here, but left his mouth closed.

  “If you leave now, I won’t kill you,” Bezog sighed. “You don’t have to die today. The choice… is yours. I must warn you though. This hammer…” Bezog sniffed, setting his gaze down to his weapon, “was given to me by the Oracle herself. She said it has magic, and that with it, I can’t die.”

  A lance of light caught the armor of one of the men, a dark patchwork of leather and lined with spikes at the shoulders. There was a series of red tattoos on his forearms, scrolls hanging from his legs, and horns protruding from his knees. The man started to croak a laugh, the other joining in with him. Weapons hissed from scabbards.

  The leader scowled. “Magic, you say?”

  Bezog’s hammer did the rest of the speaking. He raised it up high, clutched in two hands, spiked death flowing down from the heavens. His first blow broke the bearded man, tearing through skin, crushing his skull, rending muscles into squirming halves in a hail of red spray. The leader’s blood drenched Bezog’s front, pattering from his arms.

  Before the others could act, his hammer was in motion. In fact, it had never stopped moving but for changing direction. It tore into the next man’s stomach, spiked armor offering no defense, lifting him off his feet and sending him into the air in a great arc before tumbling across the earth. Bits of shattered ring-mail hung on the air like glimmering coins. The tumbling man came to a stop, then folded up, his arms protecting his ruined gut.

  The last man came forward shrieking, dagger in an overhand grip. Bezog smiled. His war hammer drove low, crunching and popping against the man’s knee. It snapped like a twig, flopping in the wrong direction before he hit the ground. Bezog let out a worn sigh and hefted his hammer over his shoulder, the wounded man howling in agony. In a show of mercy, he brought it around in another heavy arc, stoving through the man’s face with a ragged crack.

  When it was done, the three men were sprawled on their backs, Bezog splashed with gore and bone splinters. There wasn’t a cut on him, nor a bruise. They were nothing to him, and it was beautiful. A big full smile took Greyson. This was a man he needed.

  “Well done,” Greyson said, clapping.

  The lines in Bezog’s face seemed to have deepened, eyes red with irritation from the blood. “Some men never learn, never know when it’s better to run than to fight.”

  “I, for one, am glad these three chose today to fight. I see now why my father made you the captain of the Black Guard.”

  Bezog gave Greyson a half-smile, then got a cloth from his saddlebags and wiped the blood from his armor and his hammer. He settled himself in the lotus position just outside the cover of the tree’s canopy, letting the sleet pelt from his back. He laid his war hammer across his legs, arms comfortably draped across the haft. Around his shape formed a murky pool of pink as the remaining gore was washed from his armor.

  Greyson cleared his throat. “Why don’t you come nearer to the tree? You’ll be out of this damned weather.”

  Bezog shook his head. “I like the rain. It’s cleansing.”

  Greyson shrugged. “Enjoy.” He settled down against the trunk, doing his best to get comfortable. He directed his silent rage at the sky, but stuffed it back down into some crevice of his mind like a compressed spring, waiting to once again be unleashed. They waited for about an hour for the sleet to subside, Black Guards shivering in their frozen prisons of metal. Bezog sat without sound, motionless, a statue deep in meditation. He hardly appeared to breathe.

  The sleet rolled away, giving way to a
blurred sun. Everyone rose up— Bezog last— shaking themselves off and starting back on the path. There were a few hours of sunlight remaining when they came upon a clearing hosting a grisly sight.

  Greyson’s horse gave a snort of protest, spurring him onward. There were three gallows set in the ground, surrounding a pile of something in the center. Each of the gallows had two bodies suspended by chains around their ankles. Each held a man and a woman, stripped bare and long dead, gently swaying. Their arms were outstretched, bodies ashen, sliced, and gutted. Tortured then, Greyson reasoned as he approached one of the gallows. He wrinkled his nose at the stink of rot hanging on the air despite the breeze. Disgusted, he saw the woman’s breasts had been cut away, her groin a ruined mess, the man in a similar state of savagery. Their blood was old, browned, and crusted.

  “What sort of man does this?” he breathed. His stomach clamped in revulsion. He twisted over his saddle as a stream of bile scorched up his throat, spilling to the earth. He coughed and sloughed what remained onto his coat sleeve, mastering his spirit, and turning to again regard the dead. “Savage bastards.”

  The construction of the gallows was sloppy, cuts ragged, purely built for function rather than appeasing a crowd seeking spectacle. His eyes drifted to Bezog for his reaction and found him standing beside two of his men, all aghast over a pile of something at the center of the triumvirate of gallows. The other two guards fanned out on horseback around the clearing, likely searching for threats. Greyson’s eyes were blurred behind thick tears as he attempted to blink them away.

  The center jumble came into a focus. He saw a twisted leg, tens of limp arms, a jaw hanging slack, a face whose flesh had been partially consumed by animals. From the bottom of the pile poked hands whose fingers had been hammered flat, feet with ankles turned backwards. Mixed among the pile were globs of mud, sticks, clusters of pine needles, and other windblown debris. For the first time, he heard the Rot Flies buzzing among the dead in a chorus of rubbing wings.